Friday, February 10, 2012

This has been the month of the big
move. Faith and I, after years of living together at the William
Penn House, took up residence in our new home, four
miles directly east on East Capitol Street. Things are very
different now. Before, we lived together in a single room, shared a
bathroom and shower with a WPH intern, and shared a kitchen with the
entire Penn House staff. Now, we have a whole house all to ourselves.
We are still getting used to the idea that we have multiple
rooms for our exclusive use, not to mention that dinner will not be
interrupted by guests from the hostel asking us to tend to their
needs.

Moving
day was the second of February, and the biggest change so far is
definitely the sense of distance from the hustle and bustle of the
William Penn House. I am only now beginning to appreciate what an
intense experience it was to live full-time in a hostel with up to
thirty guests at a time. The sheer energy of the place could be
overwhelming, especially when groups rented the entire house. This
took a toll on me, and I did not even work there. In Faith's case,
her job, living and social scene were all combined at the Penn House.
For her, our new home represents an opportunity for genuine retreat,
and to develop a life away from work.

The
transition to the new house has been exciting and exhausting. There
has been so much to do - hauling, unpacking, setting up our
utilities, gathering furniture, and beginning to think about how to
decorate. Soon, we will begin getting around to the exterior
maintainance that needs doing. In spite of all of the work to do, I
suspect that our move has been easier than most. We have had a lot of
support from our friends here in the city, especially folks at the
William Penn House. Even after the move, Faith spends much of her
time back at William Penn House (she works there, after all!), and I
visit on a regular basis. We both continue to be part of that
community, though the form of our participation is changing. Our
relationship with William Penn House is a source of strength.

Besides
all the preparations for moving into our new house, the other major
focus of my life this past month has been the emerging Occupy Church
movement. From the very beginning of Occupy DC, there has been a
strong faith component. Folks from a variety of religious traditions
have come together to highlight the moral failure of a country in
which the vast majority of resources are controlled by an
increasingly tiny percentage of our citizens. During the first weeks
of Occupy DC, it became clear to several Christian occupiers that we
needed an explicitly Christian voice within the Occupy movement, in
addition to the wider interfaith network. One night in mid-October,
Brian Merritt,
Jeremy
John and I set up the Prayer Tent in McPherson Square, and Occupy
Church was born.

Through
the end of 2011, Occupy Church was primarily a solidarity effort
within the McPherson Square camp. However, with the dawn of the new
year, Occupy Church has begun to move in new directions. As the
camping aspect of the Occupy movement has become increasingly
marginal, Occupy Church has started to focus its efforts beyond the
encampments. We are now holding regular organizing meetings on
Saturday mornings, as well as larger, monthly gatherings for everyone
who is interested in seeing what a broad-based, ecumenical Christian
effort towards economic justice might look like.

The
name "Occupy Church" is intentionally ambiguous. First and
foremost, it represents our identity as Christians in solidarity with
the Occupy movement. We are Christians from a variety of
denominations and communions who feel the Holy Spirit calling us to
bear prophetic witness to the plight of the poor, and God's anger
with the fact that there are more
than forty-five million people living in poverty in this, the
wealthiest nation the world has ever known. We feel God calling us to
join with the Lord Jesus Christ in proclaiming his good news to the
poor - release for the oppressed, sight to the blind, and a Jubilee
year of debt cancellation(1).

In
this sense, "Occupy Church" represents our sense that God
is calling us to embody Kingdom values in the world. Far from
blessing the insatiable greed of Wall Street and K Street, we believe
that God is calling us into a life of selfless giving. Imitating the
prophetic life of our crucified Savior, we feel compelled to draw
attention to the idolatry of a country where Money and Market are
worshiped as gods, and the self-denying love of Jesus is mocked as
foolish idealism, at best.

There
is, however, another sense in which the name "Occupy Church"
can be understood. In addition to the calling we sense to embody
Christ's love for the poor and prophetic witness against idolatrous
greed, we cannot help but notice that the Christian community has
itself been colonized by the demonic values of Empire. Despite our
half-hearted confessions on Sunday morning, the Christian Church as a
whole does not bear fruit of genuine repentance. We, too, have been
seduced by promises of power and prosperity. As a practical matter,
we too have come to worship money as our only absolute.

For
this reason, Occupy Church cannot only be a witness by the Church to
the world. On the contrary, the Church itself must be re-occupied by
the gospel of Jesus Christ, whose place in our community has been
usurped by false idols of gold, silver and bronze. Occupy Church
represents a call for radical reformation within the Church, as well
as in the wider society. Both within the Church and beyond it, we
feel called to carry the good news that Jesus has for the poor, and
the hard work of repentance that will be necessary to change our
worldview from one ruled by money to one in which we are embraced by
the power of Love.

Please
pray for those of us in Washington, DC who are gathering together in
the name of Jesus to confront the principalities and powers that have
taken hostage our entire society, including much of the Church. Pray
that we might grow in spiritual maturity and dedication as we live
into the radical call that we are hearing from the Holy Spirit in
these days. Also, I would ask that you prayerfully consider whether
God is calling you to get involved in the Occupy Church movement.
This is only the beginning, and it will take far more than a small
band of brothers and sisters in Washington, DC to effect a
reformation of the ecumenical Christian Church.

As I
have become fond of saying, we are on a Fifty Year Plan. We have no
illusions about easy victories or quick fixes. We are in this
struggle for the long haul, and we pray that you will join us in the
long march towards an economy based in love rather than greed.